we are not all where we belong
by the truth is hard to swallow
Summary: She barely knows him, and she's quite inebriated, but she really means it. He can tell by the way her fingertips dig into his hand. andromeda x ted.


She's tiptoeing barefoot across the ledge of the Astronomy Tower, a bottle of firewhiskey in one hand and an imaginary microphone in the other. She belts Barbara Streisand lyrics at a volume that drowns out any type of melody, the once-joyous lyrics now tainted with a sardonic bitterness. Her parade has long since been rained on.

A boy—the Head Boy, specifically—enters the scene, and is torn between acting on his duties as Head Boy or his duties as a person. While the girl in question deserves detention for staying out after curfew (and a fine from the Ministry for underage drinking, though he's not one to talk), she looks like she has a death wish. You don't give someone with a death wish detention unless you want to further his or her death wish. Besides, she deserves to live. She has good taste in music.

"Hey, Andromeda—"

"—Merlin's _fuckin'_ scrotum!"

Andromeda Black almost stumbles off the edge of the tower, feet shuffling and arms flailing for balance. _Shit._ While not many would complain about one less Black roaming the halls of Hogwarts and distributing glares that turn first years into stone, he doesn't quite fancy himself an indirect-murderer. Ready to hurl blame on him, Andromeda faces him with her lips pursed and eyes squinted, as if hoping for night vision.

"Who are you and why are you here?" Her voice is accusatory – like she's supposed to be there and he isn't.

"I'm Ted, princess," he grins. "I'm the—" _fucking Head Boy, _he almost says, but then he shakes his head at himself and repeats, "Ted." He slowly walks toward her, trying his best not to surprise her again so she doesn't bloody kill herself. He offers up a hand to help her get back down, but she only stares down at him skeptically.

She presses her lips to the bottle instead and drains its remnants. "Hi, Ted," she deadpans. "I want to be alone."

Ted almost withdraws his hand, a bit offended that he was expected to leave—like the fact that it was after hours and she was breaking a rule and he was _Head Boy_ didn't matter. But he's not offended enough to ignore his gentlemanly duties and let a pretty girl risk her life, so he stretches his arm even further upward.

"I want you to go," she clarifies.

"It's not your Astronomy Tower."

Somehow he's striked a nerve. Her cheeks are reddening and her eyes are widening and she jumps off the ledge and down to Ted's level (without taking his hand, of course). "_Fine!_" Andromeda's _yelling_ at him now, her anger striking him unexpected like the first lightning bolt of a storm. She throws her arms out for emphasis, walking around the tower without a destination.

Something tells him that her frustration is beyond a spoiled teenage girl not getting what she wants. Andromeda is supposed to be the calm sister. Narcissa scoffs at everyone, Bellatrix loses her shit daily, and Andromeda is always either very composed and sober or very bubbly and drunk. Either sides of her would have been much easier to take back to the dungeons, but Merlin forbid Ted have an easy patrol.

"_Don't_ do what I ask!" she cries. Though her steps have little direction, her anger does—at him, specifically, if only because he is the only one there. He places his hand on the back of his neck, unable to believe that a sixth year is yelling at him but he doesn't want to yell back. _I'm such a shit Head Boy. _

Andromeda whips around after a moment, long, long (_long_) chestnut tresses fanning out and hitting her in the face a bit. "I mean, what does it matter what _I_ want, right?" She's pacing, closer to him, as her hand dramatically pats her chest (_her cleavage, specifically_). "Nobody cares what _I_ want, because everything _I_ want is wrong, all _wrong_!"

Heat radiates off of her like a forest fire, threatening to burn him and anyone who gets too close. It's the fire that's always present but also always beneath the coolest of exteriors. Ted still reaches his hand out to close around her forearm, to still her for a moment—but she's raising it before he can, trying to get more firewhiskey out of her bottle of condensation. Andromeda tosses it over to where she stashed six or so other bottles, a few shards flying off in every direction.

That's two detentions now—one for going out after curfew and another for littering the campus. But something tells him he won't have the heart to even give her a warning.

"I'm all wrong," and the words carve a bitter smile. "Nobody cares about _me_." She stops pacing and exhales sharply. "They just care that I don't fuck up, which means I can't do what I want. Not ever. Not even sometimes." Andromeda laughs without humor. "Not even once."

She's not even close to touching him, but he can _feel_ her. She's vague, but explicit. Her cloudy feelings, somehow, aren't very ambiguous to him at all. She discloses no names, no particular situations—but he knows exactly what she's talking about. He feels for her.

Drunkenly, she giggles, and sits Indian-style on the floor and looks up at him. She's silent (_finally_) for a minute or two, hands cupping her elbows as she searches his face for something he doesn't know if he has. Ted knows he should break the silence, try to get her sorted out enough to leave and go back to her dorm, but he can't. Silence seems to be the only thing that's right at the moment, the only thing that would right her mind. Besides, any words he could say are frozen in his throat. Her stare is paralyzing.

"You want to leave now, don't you?" Andromeda asks, not very prompting or judgmental. Not like she expects him to, or even wants him to. She's lain herself bare in front of him, a stranger, and it would take too much energy to care. "You can, if you really want to – let everyone know that Bella isn't the only crazy one." She giggles and repeats her older sister's name under her breath over and over again with a bitter fondness.

Her eyes are beautiful. Ted sits down in front of her. "I'll stay," he decides aloud. The prefect handbook demanded that he escort a student out this far after curfew to their dorm, so he was kind of obligated to stay by her side in the meantime anyway. "In case you almost kill yourself again."

Andromeda rolls her eyes; azure orbs which soon land on the silver badge on his chest. "Oh!" She adjusts it so it's straight and not crooked. "You're Head Boy, aren't you?"

"Yeah," he says, and laughs a little. "And you're," he breaks the touch barrier by poking her nose, "not all wrong."

She giggles, and then wears the leftover smile. "And you're a mudblood," his stomach twists and tightens, "but you're so nice."

As if the age-old taboo (_that sounds so wrong spilling from her plump lips_) can be excused with the simplest of compliments.

Andromeda doesn't acknowledge the fault in her choice of words. She tilts her head thoughtfully and her cold fingers trace his clenching jaw before they fall lazily to his knee. "I'm sorry." She's not apologizing for anything she's done, he realizes. Not for calling him a mudblood or ignoring his authority. The apology is on behalf of everyone she's ever waltzed or dined with under an extravagant chandelier. She's sorry _they_ make being a muggleborn a bad thing.

He has a hard time taking it as a serious apology, believing that she is really sorry. If she were really sorry, she wouldn't publicly ignore everyone who wasn't pureblood. If she were really sorry, she wouldn't just _accept_ that they make being a muggleborn a bad thing. But Ted is tolerant. Ted can forgive her false apology and all of its undertones.

"I don't mind."

Andromeda laughs with admiration in her eyes. "Of course you don't." Those cold fingers of hers encircle his palm. "You're good." She barely knows him, and she's so (_so_) inebriated, but she really means it. He can tell by the way her fingertips dig into his hand.

His lips thin and he hesitates to tell her what he thought of her to return the favor. She won't remember any of this tomorrow, he knows. And what's worse: if she does, she'll regret it like hell. So instead, Ted responds to his prefectly instincts (which weren't even very strong at the moment, to be honest).

"You should really go to bed, Andromeda."

"Should I _really_?"

"Yeah, c'mon."

He stands and pulls her up with their conjoined hands.

"Are you coming with me?" Andromeda grins with a hopefulness in her eyes she would spend a great portion of the year denying.

_Yes please_, the hormones attached to his heart say. "I'll walk you there," his head says. His head (_the one at the top of his body_) didn't want her, at least not like this, identity washed away with booze.

She's pouting at him now as he ushers her out of the Astronomy Tower to take her down the many staircases that lead to the dungeons. "Come _on_," she whines. "What would your friends say if they knew you rejected _me?_"

"What would _your _friends say if I didn't?"

"Depends which friends you're _taaawking _'bout."

He laughs and slides his arm around her waist—only because, he promises himself, she's having trouble getting down the second flight of stairs. "Another time."

* * *

><p>Haven't written in this fandom (<em>or written<em>) in ages! I'm kind of (really quite very) iffy about this, it's my first Andromeda/Ted piece and there are just lots of things I'm not sure about with this but I wanted to get it out there! I hope you guys like it and please, please give me honest reviews after reading! We're all guilty of reading or favoriting without reviewing but...please? D: 3

Oh, and Happy New Years everyone!


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